A recent study carried out by the Higher Education Policy Institute and consumer group Which? has revealed that, despite fees jumping up by £8000 since 2006, contact time has only increased by – wait for it – 18 minutes a week.

Back in the glory days of 2006 when tuition fees were a mere £1000 per year, students were apparently getting an average of 13 hours and 45 minutes of contact time (that’s lectures and seminars) each week. Now fast forward to the debt-filled days of 2013, and the average teaching time per week has crept up to a grand total of 14 hours and three minutes.

So, let’s do the Maths on that for a minute: £8000 extra per year, spread out over 40 odd weeks of teaching is £200 per week. So that’s an extra £200 in fees for an extra 18 minutes a week, which works out as just over £11 per minute. Bargain.

On the other hand, maybe it’s not all about contact time. In a recent Guardian article, chief executive of Universities UK, Nicola Dandridge, emphasised that teaching time doesn’t necessarily equate to course quality.

“Tuition fees also pay for far more than contact time,” she said. “They cover all manner of services including student support facilities, employment advice and training, library services and clubs.”

So maybe the question is, are students more satisfied with University services now than they were back in 2006?